The desirability of a user being releasably attached to an item of sports equipment has been recognised for some time as evidenced by Australian Patent Specification No. 33890/84 by Hamilton. The Hamilton specification describes apparatus for use with a surfboard, including complementary layers of interlocking hook and loop fasteners of the type known as "VELCRO" attached to the board rider's boots and the surfboard respectively. The Hamilton invention appears to have a number of drawbacks, for example, it does not seem to easily allow correct alignment of the board rider's boots with the board at a predetermined desirable position and also does not provide the rider with the opportunity to pivot his feet while riding the board. Co-pending International patent application No. PCT/AU97/00375 by the present applicant describes binding apparatus which inter alia aims to overcome these drawbacks and describes binding apparatus which includes two inter-engaging parts, one having a protuberance with a plurality of tongue members and the other having a recess with a lip and the tongue members being arranged to releasably engage the lip within the recess. The present invention is aimed at providing binding apparatus of simpler form for use with an item of sports equipment such as a skateboard or surfboard whereby the item of sports equipment may be selectively secured to and released from the persons footwear as desired. Like the aforementioned International application the invention also aims to provide binding apparatus which allows the rider to relatively easily secure his footwear to the item of sports equipment in a predetermined position and which allows the user to release himself from the sports equipment upon application of a predetermined breakaway force.